Bewick, in 1824, writes of the Comforter: "A most elegant little animal, and is generally kept by the ladies as an attendant of the toilet or the drawing-room. It is very snappish, ill-natured and noisy and does not readily admit the familiarity of strangers." This was quoted from Rees.

The name of Comforter here had once more become the exclusive property of the Holland Spaniel, but was confounded, no doubt, later in people's minds, with that of other Toy Spaniels, and the description of its nature ill accords with the Spaniel pet breeds as we now know them.

Captain Brown in 1829 refers to the Comforter, copies Bewick's picture, and says it is a cross between the Maltese and the King Charles, but in this he is, of course, quite under a misapprehension. He says the colour is generally white with black or brown (i.e., liver) patches; the ears long, the head broad in the upper part, with an acute muzzle; the hair long all over and the forelegs feathered; tail curled and feathered with very long hairs. He also says that it is the smallest of all distinct races of dogs, often not over a foot from nose to tip of tail. As the tail in the picture is fully as long as the body, the dog cannot have weighed more than two or three pounds, and this is another confirmation of my argument that it was the descendant of the tiny Spaniel of Queen Mary. He says that the Comforter is very scarce and becoming more so, being superseded by the Cocker (see above). He gives the Maltese and the Shock dog as different breeds, and there is great confusion in the Latin names, as he calls the Shock the Fotor, the Comforter, the Consolator, and the King Charles the Brevipilis. He gives the orthodox Maltese as the Melitaeus.

Fennell, 1841, gives the Shock dog and the Comforter in the same picture, which shows that the name of Comforter had gone back to the Toy Spaniel. The Shock is the Maltese, and the Comforter a parti-coloured Toy Spaniel with long, curled, bushy tail, very; pointed nose, liver (?) cheeks, and long white ears.

He says:"The Comforter or Spaniel Gentle, another sort of lap dog and which in comparison with the Shock is as Hyperion to a satyr."

He also gives pictures of the "King Charles Spaniel," and speaks in its praise as compared to the Comforter: "This beautiful breed received its name from having been the favourite of that ill-fated monarch, Charles I, who rarely walked out without being attended by several of these Spaniels. They were black-and-white with curly hair, small, rounded heads, short muzzles, long ears and webbed feet."

The picture shows a fairly high skull, deep stop, and profuse coat.

"The lap dog at the time of Dr. Caius was of Maltese breed. At present it comes from different countries, in general the more awkward or extraordinary these are the more they are prized."1

"The Springer. There are considerable varieties of this animal to be found in Great Britain, but the kind which has attained the greatest distinction is that denominated the King Charles Spaniel." (He mentions its curly hair.) 2

M. M. P. Bernard and L. Couailhac, 1842, give a picture of the "Epagneul Marlborough." A tiny black-and-white dog, round skull, shortish pointed nose, very profuse coat and feathering, very fine bone and ears very highly set. It is drawn from a stuffed specimen in the museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.

The only pictures in which Van Dyck has Toy Spaniels are the ones painted before he came to England. The best of these is one of the wife of Philippe le Roy, of the Genoese period, representing a very tiny yel-lowish-red-and-white dog weighing about three pounds, to judge from the size. This proves that the dogs in his pictures of the children of Charles I were not big by accident but were probably accurate representations of a biggish Spaniel. They are quite differently treated to his Toy Spaniels.

1 Goldsmith's "Natural History," 1874.

2 " Shooters' Guide," B. Thomas, 1809.

The only Toy Spaniel which appears to have existed in England before the time of Charles II is shown in the portrait, attributed to Sir Antonio More, of Philip and Mary, painted in 1552. This was quite a different type from the high-domed Italian Spaniel, and had no more stop than a Borzoi. It is liver-and-white, and is again shown in a portrait (now hanging in the dining room at Crabbet) of a century later, the type and colour being precisely the same as in 1552, though it is somewhat larger. It co-existed in 1660 along with the French Spaniel in different countries, which goes to prove that the French Spaniel was not evolved from it. This Spaniel of Philip and Mary is the Holland type, and was probably imported into England in 1550 by Anne of Cleves, as it was already in England before the Prince of Orange's importation. It may possibly have been crossed with the Springer by the Duke of Marlborough; the reference to the Blenheim breed of Cockers being invariably red-and-white, does not disagree with this, as the liver colour was of a somewhat misleading shade.

I have often asked people to describe the colour of the dog in the picture already mentioned, and they call it red-and-white or brown-and-white quite indiscriminately, whereas it is really quite a different colour from the present Blenheim. The liver-and-white Holland Spaniel has now died out, but the type of head may sometimes be seen in the Marlboroughs. The Duke of Marlborough probably imported some of the particoloured Toy Spaniels from Holland during the wars with Flanders, or they may have come over with William III, who was a native of Holland, as well as with Anne of Cleves, though William III seems to have kept white ones.

The date of one of the importations of Holland Spaniels is settled by the following passage:

"In Somers Tracts it is narrated how Julian Romero in 1672 made a night attack on the Camp of the Prince of Orange and he was saved by his little Spaniel, which fell to scratching and crying, and withal leapt on the Prince's face, awakening him, being asleep, before any of his men.